Our visit to Sheffield United is tomorrow night, with kick-off at 8pm, thanks once again to our good friends at Sky Sports. Bramall Lane is about a mile to the south of Sheffield city centre.
If you're driving down from Leeds, you need to take the M1 to junction 34, then the A6109 Meadowhall Road signposted Sheffield. Continue for 3 miles until you get to the inner ring road, and take the fourth exit at the roundabout onto the A61.
When you pass the railway station you need to start to think about parking, as parking at the ground is for permit holders only, and there is the usual residents only zone in the nearest streets.
There is a car park by the station and further along Bramall Lane itself (going away from the City Centre) is the Ant Marketing Building (S2 4RN) which offers matchday parking at a cost of £5. But it is normally full 90 minutes before kick off.
For Park and Ride enthusiasts the best option is to take advantage of the free parking at Meadowhall shopping centre (right next to junction 34 of the M1) and get a train or tram into Sheffield from there. The last tram back to Meadowhall from outside the Cathedral in the city centre isn’t until 23.52, so this is still an option for midweek games.
For those arriving by train it's a 10-15 minute walk from the station, you simply turn left at the island in front of the station and continue down this street to the ground. (Or wait until you get rounded up for a police escort).
After the game the police have been known to keep fans waiting outside the station until a Leeds train comes in, and if you want to catch another train to somewhere else, that’s tough as you might well miss it.
I don’t know if any pubs will be open in Sheffield before or after the game, and in any case the ones close to the ground tend to be for home fans only. About a ten minute walk away at the bottom of Eccleshall Road is a Wetherspoons called the 'Sheaf Island', which tends to have a mix of home and away fans. Nearby behind the Waitrose supermarket is the Beer Engine pub on Cemetery Road, which offers up to six real ales and also serves food.
You could also try 'The Howard' opposite the railway station, the real ale Rutland Arms, which is nearby in Brown Street, or the Globe in Howard Street, which is also close to the station. And there is always the ‘Sheffield Tap’ in the station itself.
Bramall Lane is a relatively large stadium by Football League standards, with a current capacity of 30,702. The South stand first opened in 1975, and was built on part of the cricket pitch where Yorkshire used to play some of their home matches. At the time the cost of this stand caused the club considerable financial problems, which they had to alleviate by selling Tony Currie to Leeds.
The Kop and the HFS Loans Stand were built during the 1990s to replace stands which had to be demolished due to the Taylor report. At the time the cost of these stands caused the club considerable financial problems, which they had to alleviate by selling Brian Deane to Leeds. (I’m beginning to see a pattern here!)
All of this left the ‘Redbrik Estate Agency’ (Bramall Lane) Stand as the oldest left in the ground, and this is the bit they give to away fans. This stand is two tiered and has two large supporting pillars in the upper tier. The front of the lower tier of this stand is uncovered, so anyone sitting there will have to hope it doesn't rain!
Our ticket allocation is a measly 2,688. so it’s no surprise that it has sold out. It is of course a ‘Category A’ game, so prices are £43 for adults, with various concessions ranging from £22 to £36. And the game is close to being a complete sell-out, because there are only a few tickets left for Sheffield United fans.
Our less than generous allocation will have encouraged Leeds fans to try to get tickets in the home stands, but they’re not going to make it easy for us. It says on their official website that "tickets are only on sale to customers registered on our database with a minimum of 650 loyalty points.
Exciting things could be happening the future, as the Club have planning permission to add an extra tier to the south stand, which would provide an additional 5,400 seats. And they have also announced plans to extend the Kop backwards, adding around another 3,000 seats, though so far nothing has been done to turn either part of this scheme into reality.
If both schemes come to pass they will take the total capacity to over 40,000, so we can live in hope that one day we will get a decent ticket allocation when we visit Bramall Lane.
Some of this stuff came from www.footballgroundguide.com .